Next week on Simpleness will be “Health Week”, posts and newsletters will focus on a more simple and effective approach to your health, especially in preventing health problems in the first place. Book reviews, old-age tips, and herbal suggestions will all be forthcoming.

As I say, the newsletter will feature extra resources and tips that won’t be on the blog, so if you’re interested (of course you are!) simply sign up for free below:

Related posts:

1. Woo! New Stress-beating eBook and Free Newsletter!
2. 5 Superb and Simplistic Blogs

I’m guessing you’re gagging to dive right in to the week with some excellent resources! Of course you are So, without pause, here are 5 fantastic blogs that centre around minimalism and simplicity..

1. Minimal Mac

If you’re a Mac user, and reading this right now, Minimal Mac might just be your ideal blog. With a compelling meeting between the World’s most beautiful Operating System and the philosophy of simplicity, what more could you possibly want? It has software tips, hardware suggestions, and regular quotes from Mac users worldwide.

http://minimalmac.com

2. Zen Habits

The classic and top-of-the-pile Zen Habits was the first blog I found dedicated to cutting crap from life, and promoting what is really important in your life. Taking a Zen approach to your life, without sacrificing modern offerings, is Leo’s game here. He also produces first rate eBooks (and dead-tree versions, too!) Disclaimer: Leo’s books are advertised on this site.

http://zenhabits.net

3. Unclutterer

Unclutterer, as the name suggests, deals almost exclusively in physical simplicity – and tidying your wretched home up! The blog strongly promotes minimalist work spaces and environments, making it a perfect complimentary read alongside more mental-minimalism blogs!

http://unclutterer.com

4. Think Simple Now

Think Simple Now is very similar to the Simpleness blog, in that it exclusively focuses on promoting simplicity in all areas of your life. Regularly updated and a perfect design, TSN should be high up on your reading list.

http://thinksimplenow.com

5. Minimalismi

The ultimate blog on minimalistic architecture and design (in my opinion!) is Minimalismi. With daily images and write-ups that inspire, there’s never something on there that doesn’t make you go “oooooo”.

http://www.minimalismi.com

Do you have any other suggestions? Or have a blog of your own? Please do leave a comment!

P.s. did you catch the launch of the Simpleness newsletter and free eBook “10 Proven and Simple Ways To Bring Calm To Your Life”? Click here for all the info!

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2. The Simple Guide to a Minimalist Life

I have worked very very hard at making this 15-page guide both packed with juicy tips and tricks to beat stress out of your life, yet keeping it as simple and easy to follow as possible. With the literary masterpiece (I jest – sort of!) I hope the following are true for you:

• Learn simple and instantly appliable techniques to reduce stress and bring calm to your life right now
• Use these golden tips to ensure stress is kept at bay forever, and life is lived rather than worried about
• Adjust your way of thinking to become more positive and effective – through both practical planning and small healthy additions to your lifestyle

I got slightly carried away and in the mood whilst writing the final 10th simple tip, and so there is actually 11 included in the eBook!

Now in a couple of weeks, the eBook will be priced at £5 and be available through a new page with other eBooks I have written (including audiobooks for meditation! woop!). But in this moment I would like to give you a totally free copy (PDF, no DRM or fluff) just for signing up to something else that is new… and free…

The Free Simpleness Newsletter!

Yes, that’s right! A free newsletter. I wanted a way to both get to know my most passionate readers, and thank them for being loyal. I hope to do that through providing content each week that is not featured on the blog here, and receive emails back with feedback. As I say, it is totally free to subscribe to and your free copy of “10 Proven and Simple Ways To Bring Calm To Your Life” will be emailed the second you enter your beautiful details below…

I’m am so excited by this I could burst. The feeling of accomplishment when you finish a book, even though short and electronic, is sensational! Thank you, dear subscribers, in advance..

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3. Meditation – A Simple Introduction

Meditation

Many that promote meditation preach its health benefits (such as better blood pressure, stress-relief, cell-regeneration) and whilst those are very valid reasons to take up meditation, I will mostly focus on the mental effects of some daily time for you.

I personally started meditating because I tried it, and enjoyed the feeling. Eastern guru’s often say you shouldn’t meditate for a reason, just meditate. I wasn’t far from that, but in the West, it is very difficult to untie yourself from the cause and effect, the reason for doing things. The feeling I receive from meditation is something akin to euphoria.

What is Meditation?

Meditation is not hypnosis, not sleep, and not going to give you magical powers of flight or invisibility (well, probably not!). You don’t lose control of yourself, in fact you will undoubtedly feel more in control. And to tell you the truth, you’ve probably had many many experiences of meditation already.

Times such as daydreaming, staring in to nothingness with no thoughts, dancing in a club feeling like you’ve entered nirvana, and staring in to your partners eyes all feel very similar, and actually are very similar, to the experience during meditation.

My main positive in practicing meditation is quieting the mind – no thoughts chattering through your head at a thousand miles per hour. This allows me to become more aware of other things during the rest of the day, things I may have missed if I had a consciousness going at the speed of sound.

Meditation should be daily, I certainly get withdrawal symptoms (anxiousness and heightened-sensitivity) once I’ve gone a couple of days or more without taking the time out. Some practice twice a day. But everyone, and that’s everyone, must have at least 10 minutes a day? It is surely worth it, I promise you.

A Simple Meditation Practice

Below is a very very basic first practice, to settle you in to the habit of taking time out. Further posts will build up to deeper and deeper meditations, with more complexity and more effect. But for the absolute beginner, I recommend the following:

1. Either take a seat on a comfortable but properly-backed chair, with your spine upright. If you can’t find the spot which is “upright”, gently lean back and forth until you feel the crossover in the centre.
2. If you are unwilling or unable to use a chair, laying flat on a bed is also fine, but be sure not to fall asleep!
3. Place your feet flat upon the ground, and relax your arms completely on your thighs, palms up.
4. Close your eyes and take stock of your body – what you are feeling now both emotionally and physically. Just note how you feel – don’t wander off thinking why you feel this way or similar distractions.
5. Slowly and gently breath in through your nose, concentrating your “mind’s eye” on following the breath as in travels in to you. Notice how pure that air is, or is not.
6. Breath in until your lungs are as full as you can take, and hold for roughly 5 seconds. Don’t worry about counting, though.
7. As you breath out, let the exhalation relax your shoulders, back, lower back, and hips, as if the tension is leaving those areas. Exhale as completely as is comfortable (the more the better).
8. Repeat 3 times, or as desired!
9. As you open your eyes (whenever you are ready) take stock again of how you feel emotionally and physically. Note any significant changes to how you feel.

Try this practice once or twice every day for a week, and please do let me know how you get on! I would love to hear people’s experiences.

Before I go, if you are interested in meditating because of some apparent stress in your life, I am releasing an eBook later this week entitled “10 Ways To Bring Calm To Your Life”, so please do check back (or leave a comment and I will personally email you upon its release)! Also, meditation related paraphernalia (including books and mats) will be appearing in the Simpleness Store very very soon.

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SimpleNote is an iPhone/iPod Touch app that is possibly the simplest, yet most magical note taking application available. It also features a superbly design web interface, which is synced to automatically and very quickly.

Searching is key to finding notes you need, none of that category or tag fluff here. You can also send notes as emails, which can be handy if you use services like Posterous – turning it in to a blogging application too.

The web interface has also recently been updated by the creator of the UserScript Simplenote Restyled.

SimpleNote will set you back a very decent amount of £1.19 ($2?).

Just to let you know:
The Simpleless Store is now open! In partnering with Amazon, we present the only (known) dedicated online shop to everything simple and minimal. From books to furniture, new items are added each day!

Check http://simpleness.eu/store for more – and, ahem, don’t forget it’s nearly… you know. Christmas.

*runs*

Related posts:

1. The Simpleness Store Is Here!
2. Meditation – A Simple Introduction

It is my great pleasure to introduce the only (that I have seen!) online shop that brings you exclusively minimalist books and other goods! In partnering with Amazon, I hope to add goods day in day out to give you the best resource for your simplistic necessities.

To see the store, there is a link in the top navigation, or direct at http://simpleness.eu/store if you are reading via RSS! I will be adding a more prominant button soon and integration site wide (widgets etc.!).

Feedback and thoughts MUCH appreciated! Enjoy!

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Consumerism is a word of delight to retailers and marketers, and the end of the World to those that buy in to it heavily. That is my view, yours may differ, but the culture of ‘what should I buy next’ has some fundamental flaws to its argument, not least that it carries with it the false idea of ‘enough’.

There is never a point where you feel you have enough, if you place more appreciation on getting what you haven’t got, rather than the wonder of what is already in your life. You are chasing a ficticious end-point of happiness, and the retail sector love that fact. They love that you’ll never stop buying. It gives them power.

Alongside the idea that ‘more is better’, comes the idea that functionality is no longer as important as the status message of what you buy, or how ‘beautiful’ your latest purchase is. We buy sofas worth thousands that are uncomfortable, expensive fast-food that does the total opposite of what food is meant to do (give us energy and sustenance).

We’ve been conned in to thinking that the more expensive something is, the better it will feel to own. I call bullshit.

A few simple ideas that may help:

1. Before buying something, ask yourself why you’re buying it. Whether it will, in reality, do what you ‘think’ it will do. Will that Big Mac give you the energy you need, or mask your hunger pains whilst filling you with needless genetically modified chemicals?
2. Take a look at all the things you own. Throw or sell the ones you haven’t or won’t use, and look at the rest. How else could you use them? Are they doing what the salesman promised?
3. Take a walk in the park, breathing in lots of fresh air and really looking around you. The miracle of trees and flowers, families playing. Compare how you would feel if this was taken away from you, as opposed to whatever-your-gadget-of-choice is.

Do you agree consumerism is making us forget the miracle of what we have already?

No related posts.

The link to simplicity here is, as mentioned in the post, it is often the simple things that can make you feel better.

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Is it, now?

We spend hours of our day dedicating thoughts, fears, panic and urgency to things that when put in to perspective actually mean very little.

A man I have admired for some time, The Barefoot Doctor wrote a book entitled ‘Manifesto’, and I would like to quote from the first few golden pages if I may:

“But I tell you what, if you reckon on the fact that you’re going to die anyway one day, and you never know exactly when that will be until it happens, and you figure from that that you’ve got nothing to lose and in fact everything in the entire word to gain, then with the data you access from reading this [book], you will, in no time, find yourself having a ball, baby, you’ll find yourself having an absolute ball.”

Putting aside the fact that paragraph was all one sentence, there is a point of perfection to it. The idea that if your life as you know it will cease to be at some unknown point in the future, you have nothing to lose. Because it will all feck off and go whatever pills you take.

This phrase fills me with freedom and opportunity. And in fact quashes my worries. Why the hell am I worrying that the ironing isn’t done? How, pray tell, is that going to end the World?

My advice is this:

1. Organise your worries in to “World ending” and “Superficial” categories.
2. Address the disaterous category first, and treat the other as “when I have time”.
3. Dont apologise for this, or see yourself as acting selfish in any way. Yes, it will make Sandra smile if that report she is barking for is in first thing Monday, but it also won’t end her World if it isn’t. Or yours. If you don’t get round to it, it can’t have been in your first category.

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